Autonomous cargo, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and other unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mission driven systems need full flight profile awareness and guidance through launch, en route, payload delivery, and landing. For landing on sea-based ships, locating the ship, locating the deck landing spot, selecting a deck spot clear of obstacles and vehicles, matching the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV motion to ship deck motion, and providing guidance to a safe landing at the desired deck spot is needed for full autonomy.
There are normally two aspects to landing a UAV: (1) deciding where to land; and (2) using control signals to guide the aerial vehicle to land. The problem of deciding where to land involves navigation and tracking techniques.
Existing methods include vision-based solutions. They include a nadir-facing camera and an image processing computer. Traditional vision-based approaches to autonomous landing often rely on a high-contrast landmark, such as a large “H” symbol, that can easily be identified by standard image processing algorithms.